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QUINCY, ILL. -- You may have heard recent news reports of cities trying to land an ultra-high speed internet network developed by Google.

Topeka, Kansas changed its name to Google for a day, and the mayor of Sarasota, Florida swam with sharks in hopes of getting Google's attention and win that network.

Quincy also is in the competition.

If you missed our initial report about that, you can click here:  http://www.connecttristates.com/news/story.aspx?list=~%5Cnews%5Clists%5Clocal%20and%20state&id=433931

Quincy's efforts have been far less flashy...but the group spearheading this effort doesn't believe it needs flash.

It says the Gem City shines on its own, and is the perfect place to put this network.

To get to the future of the internet, the plan is to go back to the stone age.

The plan centers around this, an underground cave network underneath Quincy.

"You really save tens of millions of dollars by using our cave system for a hardened data center," says Dave LaLande.

Data centers house computer systems and all of their components. Dave LaLande is a member of the Quincy group trying to land Google. He tells KHQA a data center needs to meet three requirements. It needs to be cooled, it needs to be hardened, or protected from the elements and the possibility of a terrorist attack. The underground caves offer both of those just because they're caves...55 degrees year round, and the mostly limestone would be very protective. The third thing a data center needs is power.

"And it just so happens that Quincy is in its final stages of planning a hydro power plant not more than three miles from the caves," says LaLande.

LaLande says in his mind, all the stars are aligning to make Quincy a host city. Another benefit, Quincy is sandwiched between Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago. If it could host the fiber network, getting infrastructure to three major metropolitan areas would be easy. Plus, the likelihood of Quincy getting hit by a terrorist attack seems pretty low. And if Quincy were to land the Google project, the community could benefit in a big way.

"The real estate costs will go up. Your property will be worth more, but it's about jobs. One community that was in a study, 700 new jobs were created. These are not $20,000 a year jobs," says LaLande.

The reality is this. Quincy is one of 1000 communities vying for this network. LaLande hopes Google will at least come and see for itself what the Gem City has to offer.

The group behind this movement has a couple of websites with more information.

If you're a Facebook member, you can become a fan of the Quincy Fiber project:  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=302257533703

Or visit www.quincyforgoogle.com 

Right now it has a little more than 1000 members, and the group would like to get 10,000 members to show Google a lot of the community is interested in this.